Just Politics

[BullNBear52]

Another case that is on the docket.

Supreme Court to face major cases on Obamacare and religion in coming term
PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 25 20206:18 PM EDTUPDATED FRI, SEP 25 20206:32 PM EDT

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/25/trump-supreme-court-pick-major-cases.html

Another major case concerns the Constitution’s religious liberty protections, and the government’s ability to limit discrimination against LGBT people.

In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the court will consider a challenge brought by a Catholic foster care agency against a Philadelphia policy that says the agency must not reject prospective same-sex foster parents on the basis of their sexual orientation. Arguments in the case are set for Nov. 4.

The city has argued that it has a legitimate interest in protecting LGBT couples from discrimination, but the agency, Catholic Social Services, alleges that the policy amounts to discrimination and hostility against its religious beliefs because it “refuses to embrace the City’s beliefs about marriage.” A federal appeals court sided with the city.

The case is significant because the agency is asking the court to strike down a longstanding precedent that has applied to laws affecting religious liberty for three decades. The court decided in Employment Division v. Smith in 1990 that generally applicable laws that do not specifically target religion do not violate the Constitution.

After the top court ruled in the Employment Division case, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which heightened scrutiny on laws affecting religious liberty.

According to Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, in the years since the passage of that law the Supreme Court has interpreted it in a way that has “expanded religious liberty rights well beyond where they were in 1990.”

Franke said it was quite possible the court would revisit Employment Division v. Smith and “read those RFRA rights back into the Constitution.”

Even before Ginsburg’s death, the Roberts court was particularly deferential to religion, but it is likely to grow even more so.

Just last term, the court ruled that Trump could allow employers with sincerely held religious beliefs to bar their workers from receiving free contraceptive coverage under Obamacare, shielded religious schools from discrimination suits brought by teachers, and struck down a decision from a Montana court that had eliminated a scholarship program indirectly funding religious schools with taxpayer money.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/25/trump-supreme-court-pick-major-cases.html